31 SF residents displaced by Haight St. fire

SAN FRANCISCO 
City officials say 31 residents were displaced by a fire that damaged a large apartment building in the Lower Haight district of San Francisco.

Mayor Ed Lee said Wednesday that the city's Human Services Agency and the Red Cross are offering aid to the people who lost their homes due to the four-alarm fire.

The fire, which was sparked in the Victorian-style building's attic, raged for about an hour and a half Tuesday evening and forced officials to shut down traffic for hours in the busy intersections around Haight and Fillmore Streets.

Lee said the displaced will be the first to benefit from a recent change to city law which allows tenants whose homes are uninhabitable because of fire or earthquakes to receive temporary housing at the same rental rate.